Professional and More Professional
Two miles below the ridgeline on the south slope, behind a gray-white limestone ridge, Luc Charbonnier had been lying in a narrow crevice between the rock and the ground for almost four hours.
.?? m can remind you now.
A raised rock eave provides shade overhead, low shrubs line both sides, and a scree slope lies behind.
He took three precautions: Disillusionment Charm to hide his body's outline in the air, and Scent-Dulling Charm to cover up the smell of sweat and the lingering smell of smoke on his robe.
The Confundus Charm is spread within a three-meter radius. When a living creature passes by, its mind will automatically avoid this area. Birds will mistake it for a stone, and foxes will also mistake it for a stone.
In mid- April, the sun begins to heat the ground in Provence after it rises over the eastern mountain ridge.
Luc's breathing was long and slow, his chest pressed against the ground, and he could feel the heat rising from the soil and the cool air seeping from under the stones fighting against each other.
His left hand rested under his chin, while his right hand held the Magic Lens, which was as long as an arm and had a matte silver-gray surface. It was inlaid with three layers of alchemical circuits: the outermost layer focused, the middle layer filtered, and the innermost layer developed.
This kind of thing isn't uncommon in the France market; its quality depends entirely on the precision of the circuit.
The Luc has is a high-end product; its filtering layer can filter out 90% of environmental Magic Power interference, and its focusing layer can zoom in to see the Magic Power outline of a Gnomes from five miles away.
He was now observing the density distribution of the Protective Charm on the manor two miles away. The thicker the Protective Charm, the brighter the reflection in the mirror; the thinner the spells, the darker the reflection.
The estate's protective perimeter extends from the Muggle road at the foot of the hillside all the way south of the ridgeline. Through the lens, most of the estate appears to be shrouded in varying shades of silvery-white.
The brightest area was a section in the north-central part of the manor, the heart of the estate, which shone dazzlingly in the mirror.
Luc's gaze slid across the bright area, tilting the lens slightly south, scanning the edge of the Protective Charm by segment.
The brightness begins to drop in the middle section of the south slope, and at the junction of the south and west slopes, the silvery-white reflection in the mirror becomes noticeably darker, creating a difference in brightness with the sides.
It extends about two hundred meters down from the ridgeline, wide enough for two people to pass side by side.
He put down the lens and took out a palm-sized gray stone slab from the inner pocket of his robe. The surface was polished smooth, and the edge was engraved with a circle of fine Rune.
The wand was pressed against the center of the stone slab, and a phrase was whispered. The light from the tip of the wand seeped into the stone surface.
A luminous thin line appeared on the stone slab, its direction perfectly matching the curvature of the Protective Charm within the lens. The line's thickness corresponded to its density, and its brightness to its intensity.
A moment later, the lines connected to form a contour line, dissecting the entire manor's Protective Charm into a plan.
As the boss relayed, the information provided by the UK woman was accurate, at least regarding Protective Charm.
Luc marked a line of numbers on the edge of the stone slab, accurate to the graduations.
After finishing, he tucked the wand into his sleeve, took out a small piece of charcoal from his pouch, and wrote a few key points on the stone floor in such illegible handwriting that only he could read them.
The record shows Felix Laval's route from the main house to the south slope and back, which took about one hour and forty minutes, the same as yesterday.
And there was the male employee working among the trellises, wearing a straw hat, who was around the pruning group's area around 10 a. m., and went to the irrigation canal around 11 a. m.
There was also a short witch squatting beside the vines, holding scissors, moving occasionally and then resting. Felix would say a few words to her every time he passed by.
His gaze finally settled on the south-facing window on the second floor of the main house.
The lens revealed the figure of a young boy sitting at a table, head down, presumably reading a book. The morning sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating half of his body.
Luc stared at the shadow for a long time.
The child has been sitting since morning, only standing up twice in between: once to get water and once to stand by the window before sitting back down. He hasn't even gone to the toilet.
Thirteen years old.
Luc muttered to himself, "The heir of Pure-bloods family has come all the way to France, only to sit in the manor all day long. Is this all the homework he has? Being a young master these days isn't easy."
He kept an eye on it for a while, making sure there were no extra people around the main house, no armed patrols, and no outsiders coming in or out.
This aligns with the usual practices of the estate that the owner has gradually come to understand over the past few years: Laval is in charge of security, Dupont is in charge of the estate, and a dozen or twenty employees work there.
The boss's fears that the other party was prepared did not materialize.
The sun was beginning to set in the west, Luc began to wrap up work.
He first put away the lens, wrapped the stone slab in soft leather, stuffed it into his waist pouch, and then fastened it. After that, he checked the place he had been from head to toe.
A patch of moss was crushed, the dust patterns on the rocks were skewed by an elbow, a dent was formed where a knee had pressed down, and several drops of sweat fell onto the soil.
He pulled out his wand and Vanishing Spell.
The moss fibers stretched themselves up again, returning to their fluffy state before being compressed; the dust patterns on the rock surface were Magic Power guided back into place; the knee marks were filled in; and the sweat evaporated completely.
He did it methodically, one step at a time, and checked it again after he finished to make sure that every trace was completely removed. He then glanced in the direction of the manor and packed everything away.
He lay there without moving, and then, snap, the spot was empty.
The wind blew down from the mountain ridge, smoothing out the last vestiges of Magic Power in the air.
After a period of silence, about fifteen minutes, about thirty meters away from the rock, a figure materialized out of thin air.
There was no sound, no feeling of air being forced out; it was as if nothing had suddenly appeared, and a person was standing there.
The woman, in her early thirties, wore a dark travel robe. The fabric was neither new nor old, and the color was neither too dark nor too light. She would have been easily overlooked in a crowd.
Her hair was tied tightly at the back of her head, with no stray hairs showing at her temples or brows.
Her face wasn't particularly attractive; her jawline was a bit wide, her nose wasn't high, and her eyebrows were very light. Overall, her features weren't very refined, and they weren't particularly memorable.
The way a person occupies space when standing there Taiyi from that of an ordinary person.
His posture was relaxed, with his shoulders relaxed and his hands hanging down at the sides of his robe. But if you look closely, his center of gravity was very stable, with a straight line running from the top of his head to his tailbone and to one heel.
His eyes weren't big, but he looked at things very directly, glancing at the ground, then looking away, then scanning into the distance, without any hesitation.
She glanced southeast at Cassis, then vanished from her standing position.
It was as quiet as when it appeared, not even a ripple remained in the air; the moss was still moss, and the sunlight was still sunlight.
On the eastern slope, an old olive tree grows about 600 meters from the protective boundary. Olive trees in Provence can live for hundreds of years, and this one is at least two hundred years old.
The trunk is so thick that it takes three people to encircle it. Its canopy spreads out, blocking out the sunlight from half an acre of land. The branches are twisted and gnarled, and the undersides of the leaves are silvery-gray.
In the densest layer of the tree canopy, a smuggler's scout crouched among the branches, holding a retractable brass monocular Telescope.
I bought it on the Black Market. The barrel has several rough markings, and the lens has a slight color difference at the edge.
He saw Laval's second round of activity in the evening, saw the employees walking from the south slope back to the main house after work, and saw a dark red thing darting back and forth among the trellises on the west slope.
He looked through the Telescope for a long time before recognizing it as a large spider.
He memorized the time interval between Laval's two walks and the route the employees took to finish work.
No one bypasses the Old Vine District, nor does anyone specifically avoid a particular direction. Either there are no traps, or the traps are outside their usual routes. Either way, there are plenty of options for how to break in.
As darkness fell, the lights in the main house came on. A figure in the second-floor window stood up, walked to the window, stood there for a while, and then sat back down.
He put away his tools and, like Luc, carefully cleaned the area he had been in, restoring the marks left by trampled branches, scratches on the bark, and the orientation of the surrounding leaves.
Apparition, snap, gone.
The old olive tree fell silent again, the night wind rustling softly through its branches and leaves.
About ten minutes later, a man's figure emerged from the shadows at the very top of the tree canopy.
He was in his early forties, lean and wiry, squatting on the branches of two thick branches, one arm draped over his knee, the other hanging down, his wand tucked into his sleeve pocket.
Similar observation points were also observed at an abandoned stone sheep pen at the end of the driveway directly opposite the manor gate, and further away on the west slope behind a patch of wild Rosemary bushes.
One was observing the southwest, and the other was observing the north.
Felix knocked on the door of Regulus's living room on the evening of the third day.
Regulus was sitting at the table reading a book, a fifth-grade book called "Deep Magical Structures in Metals," turned to the chapter on the effect of lattice defects on Magic Power Conduction efficiency, with a half-finished alchemical tool on his left.
Felix approached the table and reported directly, "One on the south ridgeline, one on the olive tree on the east side, one in the sheepfold by the gate driveway, and one in the bushes on the west slope—four observation points. We observed from there for three days, and today we've all withdrawn."
Regulus closed the book and looked up.
Felix continued, "The other side used a lens-type alchemical tool, specifically designed to detect large-scale protective Magic. The section where the south and west slopes meet is currently under maintenance and has been downgraded; they saw it."
Regulus hummed in agreement.
Felix pulled a folded piece of parchment from his inner pocket and handed it over. "It's from a retired Auror in Bordeaux. It took me two days and a favor."
Regulus took it and unfolded it.
A color Portrait of a man in his early fifties, with his hair combed back, two Silver Thread on his forehead, and a long face with distinct bone structure.
High cheekbones, well-defined features, a straight nose, deep blue eyes, and an eagle-shaped brooch on her collar—the details are all drawn very clearly.
Victor Delacroix.
Regulus returned the parchment, saying, "Understood, go on with your work."
Felix nodded and went out.
Regulus continued reading.
Claire Frey squatted on the bottom shelf of the storage room, carrying out a row of dusty crucibles and wiping them one by one with a rag.
No one assigned her this job; she was just bored. Even after the safety plan was activated, the perimeter work continued, but she had nothing to do.
After wandering around the main house for two days without finding anything to do, I simply went into the storage room.
As she turned the third crucible over to wipe the bottom, she suddenly felt a chill down her back and slowly turned her head.
Baruk was hanging upside down on the door frame, her two-meter-long body pressed against the angle between the wall and the ceiling, her eight legs gripping in different directions, her spider head peeking out from above the door frame, her eight large amber eyes staring at her.
Claire was startled; the crucible slipped from her hand and crashed to the ground with a thud. She clutched her chest, her dark brown eyes wide with shock.
Baruk slid off the doorframe, landed on the ground, tilted his spider head, looked at Claire, then at the rolled-off cauldron, and then used one of his front legs to push it back to Claire's feet.
After finishing, the spider's head came closer again, its chelicerae opening and closing gently twice, making a clicking sound.
Claire's heel slipped, and her back hit the shelf, causing the bottles and jars on it to sway.
She had seen this spider several times, knew it didn't bite, knew it belonged to the young master of the Black family, and knew it would run away and come back on its own.
But knowing it was there was no way to process what was happening when a huge creature, about two meters long, suddenly appeared behind him.
Baruk took another step forward, stretched out one foreleg, and gently touched the top of her shoe with the tip of his claw. He looked up at her and touched it again.
Claire stared at the leg, which was longer than her own, and took a deep breath. "Go away!"
Baruk's chelicerae snapped shut, its head tucked back, then it turned and scrambled toward the storage room door with its eight long legs.
As Regulus passed by the door, he ran into Regulus, who was carrying a cup of coffee. Baruk's spider head rubbed against his leg before continuing to crawl down the Corridor.
Regulus glanced at Claire, who was squatting on the floor in the storage room, took a sip of coffee, and left.
These two get along quite well.
(And there's more!)